French Police Detain Four More Suspects Over Knife Attack in Nice, Reports Say

09:31 GMT, 3 November 2020

Irina Acheeva

correspondent

Tensions are high in France as the question of depicting cartoons of Islamic Prophet Muhammad comes to a head, beginning with the decapitation of teacher Samuel Paty in mid-October for showing the drawings in class.

Sputnik

Four more people have been detained in Val-d'Oise over last week's fatal knife attack in Nice, France, AFP reported.

One of them, aged 29, is suspected of having been in contact with the Tunisian assailant, according to AFP. The other three, aged 23 to 45, were reportedly present at the home of the first suspect.

Six people had already been taken into custody by investigators who are trying to identify the closest associates of the main suspect, a 21-year-old Tunisian, injured during his arrest.

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On 29 October, a 21-year-old man from Tunisia, later identified as Brahim Aoussaoui, killed three people with a knife in the Notre Dame Basilica in Nice. Mayor Christian Estrosi said the attacker had repeatedly shouted: "Allahu Akbar" (God is great). The French government has called it a terrorist attack.

After the Nice attack, another assault took place on 31 October in France’s Lyon, where a 52-year-old Greek Orthodox priest, Nikolaos Kakavelaki, was shot and injured in the city's 7th district near a Greek church.

Since mid-October, France has been gripped by horror as the Islamic threat has increased following the brutal decapitation of French history teacher Samuel Paty by a radicalised teenager.